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The effect of childhood multilingualism and bilectalism on implicature understanding

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Antoniou, K 

Abstract

jats:titleABSTRACT</jats:title>jats:pThe present study compares the performance of multilingual children speaking Cypriot Greek, Standard Modern Greek, and English (and sometimes an additional language), bilectal children speakers of Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek, and Standard Modern Greek-speaking monolingual children on a task that measures the comprehension of different types of implicature. Despite lower scores in language ability in the target language, multilingual and bilectal children performed at rates comparable to the monolinguals with implicature. Regression analyses indicated a positive correlation between implicature, language proficiency, and age (but not executive control), albeit language ability did not affect implicature within multilinguals. We suggest an interpretation according to which multilingual, bilectal, and monolingual children maintain a comparable level of implicature understanding, but they do so by relying on different resources. Finally, a principal component analysis on different implicature types revealed a single factor of implicature performance. This outcome has implications for pragmatic theory.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

4704 Linguistics, 5202 Biological Psychology, 5204 Cognitive and Computational Psychology, 47 Language, Communication and Culture, 52 Psychology, Pediatric, Clinical Research

Journal Title

Applied Psycholinguistics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0142-7164
1469-1817

Volume Title

38

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Sponsorship
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/H008039/1)
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/N004671/1)
Parts of this research have been funded by an ESF Experimental Pragmatics Network (EuroXPrag) collaborative grant and an ESRC Experimental Pragmatics Network in the UK (XPragUK; RES-810-21-0069) to both authors, and an Alexander Onassis Foundation scholarship for graduate studies and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Wiener-Anspach Foundation to the first author.